DISADVANTAGE IN AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS: WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE? Monthly Lunch Report

The speaker at the March lunch was Dr Sue Thomson, Director Educational Monitoring & Research at ACER. She presented two new reports analysing reasons for Australia’s poor performance in international literacy and numeracy tests.

PISA scores showed a decline in overall performance at the age of 15 in science, maths and reading literacy. TIMMS and PISA tests indicated a wide discrepancy between the achievement of advantaged and disadvantaged students.

Dr Thomson’s sobering report was followed by a lively discussion in a Q&A session facilitated by JCF Director Maxine McKew.